Olympus Handbook Digital Photography

Olympus Handbook Digital Photography | PDF | 3.2 MB
The fascinating world of digital photography

“A picture is worth a thousand words.�This is certainly one explanation for why photography has lost none of its power to fascinate and enthrall in its almost 200-year history.

Even though cameras were still expensive, heavy, cumbersome and complicated well into the 20th century, these failings proved to have little influence on the technology's success. The reason: for the first time it was possible to capture moments in time and illustrate feelings, moods and desires at more or less the press of a button. Photography was here to stay.

Whether digital or analogue, in the studio or out in the open, photography is always much more than just capturing reality. It is also the interpretation of what the photographer sees and the transformation of this into a new, two-dimensional reality so that the moment comes back to life when the image is viewed.

It's a pity then that with conventional analogue photography the results cannot be seen immediately, checked or edited until the film has been exposed and developed.

While the instant photo technology introduced by Polaroid went some way to changing this, it was digital imaging that really revolutionized the photographic experience.

Initially, this new technology was prohibitively expensive and really only attractive to technologically adventurous pro users. However, as a result of the internet and email boom, demand for easy-to-produce and affordable digital images rose to unforeseen levels. This, together with the ever lower cost of components (LCD displays, CCD chips, etc.), led to the first affordable digital cameras appearing on the consumer market in the mid '90s.

Similar to the development of the computer, digital photography has experienced a dramatic increase in performance power. For example, whereas the first consumer camera had a resolution of only around 300,000 pixels, today there are models with eight million pixels or more that not only meet the needs of professional photographers but also fit the price range of amateurs�br />